FAIRMONT — The Fairmont Board of commissioners paved the way for two former tobacco warehouses to find new life in light manufacturing during a special meeting Tuesday evening.
It was a matter of cleaning up old zoning issues, Town Manager Katrina Tatum said.
The board’s action affected the Gaston Sealey Warehouse, at 1205 S. Main St., and the Mitchell Warehouse, at 805 S. Main St. Both are zoned with the downtown central business district and are located several blocks south of the Fairmont Historic District.
Commissioner Charles Kemp asked for the record if light manufacturing would be allowed in the entire central business district.
“No,” Tatum said. “This will allow light manufacturing outside the Historic District.”
“This paves the way for using these warehouses to create jobs,” Commissioner Monte McCallum said.
A pillow manufacturer has plans for one of the warehouses. Both warehouses were owned by prominent Fairmont businessmen Gaston Sealey and A.N. Mitchell. The last use of the Sealey warehouse was the selling of farm equipment.
When the tobacco allotment system was unwrapped by Congress in 2004, the auction system with its large warehouses also vanished as tobacco companies contracted with farmers directly. Nearly $10 billion was paid to landowners who owned allotments or quotas to grow tobacco.
Fairmont was home to one of the largest markets of the old Border Belt Tobacco Market. Lumberton was another market location, but was not as large as Fairmont.
The Big Brick Warehouse remains. Others have been torn down or burned, as in the case of the Top Dollar Warehouse.
Tatum promised an extensive review of zoning.
“There are glitches, and we don’t want to piecemeal everything,” she said.
